A few months ago I was having lunch with Anne Collier, co-director of Connect Safely, and as she so often does, she mentioned something really interesting: she put “technology,” “Minecraft” and “education” in the same sentence. (You can read the detailed article by Anne here.)

Anne continued by telling me about educational gaming and Marianne Malmstrom, a teacher in the US who was making waves and receiving awards. (You can hear Marianne explain what she does as a technology teacher in this video.)

The conversation really sparked my interest and I started a bit of research on educational games. As my own children are under 8, I was a bit wary about online games and apps, after all, who wants to be responsible for starting a 5-year-old’s Angry Bird addiction? But I quickly realized that there are all types of educational games and apps for different age groups and that parents can educate and entertain their children at the same time – without feeling guilty.

PreschoolersIf you have a preschooler, there are many apps and games out there that teach math, spelling, colors, alphabet, and more. I really like PBS Kids and Nick Jr. as they involve cartoon characters that my children already know. With the proper amount of mommy supervision and a 30-minute time limit, my kids are in online heaven.

K-Grade 5For children, K-grade 5, of course there are even more choices and here I would caution the involved parent to look at the games and apps with your child so that you can best decide what game is appropriate. Does your child need a boost in math? History? Well, there’s a game for that.

Check out Kids.USA, where children can “learn stuff, play stuff, or watch videos” or National Geographic where children can play games under the well-known banner of the famous magazine. If you run out of ideas, the easiest way to find a game that interests your child is quite simple: go onto your favorite search engine and type, for example, ‘history educational games for children’ and voilà, you find results like History.org. If the websites looks like a bit dicey, you can always check out Common Sense Media for a rating on educational games.

The bottom line is that even after the experts weigh-in, it is still necessary for you as a parent to help choose the games, to make sure that the appropriate security settings are in place and to set appropriate screen time limits. And we can confirm that Anne was right: education and technology and games can go together.

Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov is a mom to two tech-savvy little boys, a lawyer, law professor and eSafety consultant. She is a member of the Working Group of experts on Digital Citizenship Education and an independent expert on Digital Parenting and Children and Internet for the Children’s Rights Division of Council of Europe.

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